813 discourse vii: the death of death eaten before. Thus it happened in the death of Christ. Since death accepted the body, which it was not able to digest, it actually vomited what it had swallowed. Since it had swallowed Christ, it was suffering and was tortured until it spewed Him forth.”70 Allow me to join to the words of such a great orator a bit of history; seeing that I deliver these words to the Poles, I will render the present subject matter clearer through a Pole’s deed. At the base of Wavel Hill, on which the citadel of Krakow is placed, to this day exists a cave, commonly called the Dragon’s Cave. Among writers of Polish history, also the Bishop of Warmia,71 records that this beast — called a dragon by our writers, but which Solinus72 calls a Boa — inhabited this cave and violently afflicted the entire neighborhood with continual slaughters of men and domestic animals. Therefore, Kracus, a man no less strong than prudent (from whom Krakow, our capital has its name and draws its origin) devised an easy and equally very ingenious plan to do away with the impetuous beast. He ordered that the animal carcasses to be stuffed with tar, sulphur, and chips of kindling, be thrown before the dragon. As the dragon ate them most ravenously, the fire ignited and convulsed the beast’s insides with so much heat, that the thirsty beast swallowed so much of the pure water of the nearby Vistula River that it [the beast] burst asunder.73 This is not unlike the deed of Daniel put on record in the Sacred Scriptures. The great dragon was venerated by the Babylonians in place of God: Ordered to accomplish that same foolishness, Daniel refused magnanimously, and told the King: “I will worship the Lord my God, for [H]e is the living God. But if you, O king, will give me permission, I will slay the dragon without sword or club” (Dan 14:25-26). 70 Ioannes Chrysostomus, Homilia 24, In Epistolam Pauli ad Corinthios Primam, Francisco Aretino Interprete, in: D. Ioannis Chrysostomi Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani in omnes D. Pauli epistolas commentarii, Basileae 1536, p. 365, A. 71 Cf. Sannazzaro, Piero, Kromer, Martin († 1589), ECat VII, 749. 72 Cf. Falco, Vittorio De, Solino, Caio Giulio (C. Iulius Solinus): EI XXXII, 77-78. 73 Cf. Cromer, Martinus, De Origine et Rebus gestis Polonorum Libri XXX, Basileae 1568, p. 21, A (Liber II).
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